Not Done Yet
by faecallie
Summary: Some things have an end. Some things seem to end but aren't quite done yet. And if you remember something, it can come back. And Time is not quite done with their story. And Rose will always come back.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The Doctor smiled ruefully at his own reflection in the Time Rotor. He'd just dropped off River again. Back to adventuring on his own, for a while at least. Well, not entirely on his own. His lovely blue box would always be there for him. Maybe he would sit down and actually get that telepathic circuit for her working. Since he wanted to be able to talk to her again, his gorgeous TARDIS. She'd said some things to him while they'd been working on building the console to chase after House that he'd ignored for the sake of their time limit, but now really needed answers about. Well, not really needed. It would be quite nice, but it wasn't necessary. He had a feeling that the answers would come when Sexy decided they would and not a moment before. It didn't hurt to try though.

_Flashback_

_ Sexy had been bringing over a panel when she suddenly dropped it, clutching at her side again, and stopping mid-sentence. _

_ "Kidneys again?" They're really quite bad at functioning sometimes. Ask the alcoholics." He commented quietly, moving to her and picking up the panel._

_ "Not really. I just stopped concentrating on containing myself for a moment. This body just doesn't fit as well as the other body I've been in, you know. I fit quite perfectly in her. She was really comfortable. And pretty. You thought so too, if I recall."_

_The Doctor stilled from his work, not knowing how to respond. So he went with avoidance, as usual, working quicker to seem nonchalant. "You were never in her body; she absorbed the Vortex, not you."_

"_And I'm part of the Vortex, you silly Time Lord. If any other TARDISs still existed, she would have gotten quite crowded and blown her casing clean off immediately. Luckily, it was just us two in there. I don't think my sisters would have been as keen to help her as I am. Just because she absorbed Time it doesn't mean she knows how to handle being a multi-dimensional being. I help her deal with it."_

_Again, avoidance. "You're messing up your tenses again, Sexy." The TARDIS stopped and tilted her head, then shook it and continued hooking up wires._

"_No I didn't. You're just not listening. But as usual, you'll get your answers someday. She's just not done yet and I'm not going to let you break her this time, so you have to wait. You're ever so bad at keeping the people that I make for you. Now pass me that lever, I know just where to put it when I'm back in my box. It'll look quite lovely on me." And that part of their conversation was over._

The Doctor shook his head and pushed _that topic_ out of his mind. He quietly guided his box into the Vortex again, listening to the quiet hum of her engines as she settled into her home. He let her drift, instead of anchoring them to one point in the four dimensions. She sometimes liked to chase down Time Agents through the Vortex like a puppy after a mailman intruded on their yard. The hum turned into a somewhat angry sounding rumble and tossed him off his feet with a firm shake. The Doctor smiled as he picked himself up. "Sorry Sexy, you can play with them however you like." He called to the ceiling as he made his way to his room. To work on the telepathic circuit that he was definitely only using because he enjoyed his TARDIS's company.

He ambled down the hallways, stopping in a few rooms to grab a few things he might need, some tea, fish custard, various gizmos and a couple bananas. The only time he ever made any progress on the circuit was when he was eating bananas for some reason. He was relatively sure it was _her_ pulling a cosmic prank on him. That's the sort of thing she would do. Because it definitely wasn't because he was happier and calmer when working on it with a reminder of _her_ sitting next to him. Nope. Definitely not that. Goodness, this him was good at denial. Three hundred and forty years' worth of practice paid off.

The Time Lord sighed, placed his tray of food and gadgets on his desk and flopped heavily onto his bed. Then sat up, reached under his bed and pulled out _her_ pillow. The TARDIS kept it smelling like her, despite all the years she'd been gone. He hugged it to his chest and flopped onto his side. There was no way he was going to be able to not think about _her_ at this point. This might even be a record for how long he'd avoided it after dropping off River. And now he felt bad. He was a terrible husband.

He'd only allowed himself to get involved with her even slightly romantically out of spite and jealousy. And because it was supposed to happen, but that was barely worth a thought now after all the years he'd know Melody Pond. He'd had a bad night before he saw her that day. His thoughts had headed down a dark path indeed. Raging at himself for never being able to say it to _her_ and now she gets her happily ever after and he's stuck here without her. Again. But it's worse now, because he made her choose. And she'd chosen other him. HUMAN him. Not that he would have let her come anyways, but still. It was the principle of the matter. He'd let himself have it that entire night, so when he dropped River off the next day and she leaned in to kiss him for the second time in his experience, he decided to go for it. It was supposed to happen and he wanted to be happy. To show _her_ that he could be happy without her, to prove that he didn't need her anymore. And when he left River standing there looking thoroughly snogged and confused, he went at himself again.

Guilt seemed to be his never ending friend, this regeneration. He didn't love River, they'd only met a handful of times in his time line, didn't trust her as far as this skinny him could throw her, and she'd killed somebody. Somebody he'd began to suspect at the time, might be him. And then Demon's Run and then she had killed him, and then they'd gotten married, and he supposed he did kind of love her. But it was a much quieter love than last time. He still couldn't say the words, and he knew River didn't understand why and got mad about it quite often. She had gotten madder when even she couldn't convince the TARDIS to open up her archives to find out more about his ninth and tenth selves and had put together somehow that the two things had something to do with each other. She'd been quite young then, during that argument, only a few years into this regeneration, a few months after he'd married her.

She'd since learned that those years were ones he would never talk about. Not even to Amy, much to the surprise of both women. The pair had pushed the issue off those years for a good week before his temper snapped and he yelled at them. They'd both backed off since then. He'd eventually explained a bit about Donna to River though because she'd recognized her in the Library, but still. He never especially liked being reminded of _her_, but when River was around, it just made him feel worse. They kissed and flirted up a storm that Jack would be proud of, but he had the feeling Jack might punch him if he ever saw their storm. And he'd be right to. Another reason he studiously avoided Cardiff and London.

Oh yeah, Jack. Maybe he should go visit him, see what he was up to. _She_'d come up of course, but if he avoided it enough, Jack would most likely drop it to avoid hurting him. Jack was nice like that. He'd of gone and seen him earlier, but he didn't think Rory would much appreciate seeing Amy throw herself at the Captain. Or have the Captain throw himself at Rory. Both were quite likely scenarios. But in all honesty, it was just because he didn't want to tell his wife's mother about the woman he was still desperately in love with that was most definitely not River. He didn't think that conversation would go well.

He sighed and buried his face in _her_ pillow and inhaled deeply. Her scent seared through his lungs and he concentrated on imprinting it in his mind, so he'd never forget it. It didn't work, it never did for long, but he tried. He only allowed himself this once every few decades after all. He just laid there breathing quietly for a few minutes focusing on _her_ scent while keeping the memories from swarming him. He was even starting to get good at it. Practice makes perfect, he supposed.

The Doctor eventually got bored of forcing himself not to think, so he sat up, carefully replaced the pillow and went to his work table to fiddle with the telepathic circuit some more. And ate a banana.

**I feel like I might be going somewhere brilliant with this. But it's probably terrible, since I have no beta. If you actually like it, feel free to review. Or if you don't. Any feedback is welcome. Even the mean kind. Though I prefer kindly worded constructive criticism. (: **


	2. Chapter 2

Not Done Yet -Chapter 2

The Doctor had progressed more than he expected on the telepathic circuit in those next few days. He wasn't entirely sure why either. Maybe it was because the TARDIS had found some poor idiot with a time capsule of some variety to chase around the Vortex again and was distracted. She certainly seemed pleased in any case.

A few months later, he heard a few rumors from his buddies in the Tessalecta that there was a monster inhabiting the Vortex, chasing them out of it in fear of their lives. They'd asked him if he could do anything about it, and he didn't have the heart to tell them that it was his TARDIS that had found a new hobby. So he'd said he'd look into it and had left after subtly snatching the part that he was there for in the first place from their person-shaped time ship. They'd figure out it was missing eventually. And there wasn't exactly a market he could attend for pieces of a time ship, and definitely none advanced enough for his beauty, so he made due.

A few weeks later, he found and dropped off River again, after a run in with some very unfriendly Blorgons in the middle of some small town in Colorado. They'd convinced them to leave, without any explosions for once, because one of the Blorgons had had taken a fancy to two of the community college kids there. It now lived in their apartment with them and had convinced the rest of the angry ones to leave so that it could quietly learn the ways of the humans so that they could take them over in the future. Or so it told them. The Doctor was of the opinion it just liked watching TV with the boys.

River then informed him that she was a Professor now, and had a class to go teach, and so he dropped her at Luna University, hoped he was on time, and decided to go fiddle with his circuit some more. It'd been a while since he felt like he'd made any progress, and the last few months had yielded a lot of progress. He was close and he knew it, which made waiting for it to work all the most agonizing. He spent half of his time these days rummaging through various attics in the TARDIS looking for parts he could swear that he'd had a few centuries back. The TARDIS didn't seem inclined to locate the parts for him at any rate. Needless to say, he'd been digging through a lot of attics.

Which was just as well, he had a lot of time to spare. He didn't really go out much when he was by himself. The amount of times he'd been told to make sure he wasn't alone meant that everyone he loved knew that he was no good by himself. It turned him dark. Rather, darker than usual. So he'd spent the last few weeks just poking around attics. It was quite dull. And such was his day today. But apparently, the TARDIS had gotten quite bored of just floating through the Vortex, and so she did something to prompt him to get outside and do something with his time. She placed _her_ room right in front of his, where it used to reside. Which really wasn't nice. But it got the job done of convincing him that he needed to leave. Or so he told himself. He wasn't running away, honestly.

Maybe it was time to go visit Jack. That way he could go adventuring and fulfill the requirement of having someone with him. Granted, _she_ would most definitely come up, but maybe, just maybe, he felt like talking about her today. He'd have to see. And with that thought, the Doctor sent himself whirling around the console and the TARDIS through space and time to see what idiocy his old friend and his little squad was up to today.

Rose was really unsure what to think when she woke up. She had just died after all.

Her husband and family had been beside her as she'd passed quietly into the night. It had been a good death after a long full life. Relatively painless too. The waking up part, not so much. That had REALLY hurt. Once the pain subsided and she managed to open her eyes, she looked to her left where her Doctor was sitting next to her, staring at her with wide eyes, mouth gaping, and tears drying on his face. And he looked shocked. The expression would have matched him better back when his hair stood on end with little effort, she thought. Or rather, back when he still had hair on the top of his head. She sat up and looked around for a moment.

"Doctor?" And Rose stopped. That didn't sound right. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Doc-"And stopped once more. Something was not quite right. It was her voice coming out, but it wasn't. She raised her hand to place it to her throat and stopped that too, noticing something. She'd injured her elbow many years ago while working for Torchwood and in her age, it had developed into quite the regular pain. And that movement hadn't hurt at all. In fact, nothing hurt. Hm.

"Uh, Rose?" The Doctor squeaked, his voice still hoarse from his earlier tears.

She couldn't decide whether she should speak or not, what with her voice sounding so funny. Also, she should be dead right now. They'd unhooked her from the machine keeping her alive so that she could be surrounded by her family in peace as she went. All of whom were staring at her in shock. Something weird must have happened. "Yeah?"

"You're Rose." He said, looking amazed and confused. What an odd thing to say.

"Who else's deathbed were you lot standing around then? Speaking of, shouldn't I be? Dead, that is."

Her son Mickey, who had become an actual medical doctor, was the one to step forward and answer. Sort of.

"That is Mum, yeah?" I've not just gone completely mad then?" He'd directed the question at the Doctor. Rose turned her head back to her husband, who merely nodded dumbly, still staring at her with sheer amazement in his eyes.

"Uh, right then. Mum, you, uh, aren't dead. But you did die. I called the time and everything. And then, there was some light. Golden light. And now, you look, well, young. Like in your pictures from a really long time ago."

"…Seriously?" She turned to the Doctor again. "Is he serious?" He nodded again. But now a thought occurred to her. "Wait a just a mo. Golden light? After I died?" Everyone nodded. And her granddaughter then came forward and climbed onto the bed with her and looked at her quite solemnly.

"You esploded." Jacqueline informed her concisely. Rose smiled and pulled the little girl into a hug. This one had always been a girl right after her own heart. Three years old, and she took after Rose so much that it scared her a little. And now she was grateful for it. Trust little Jackie to be the first one to come hug her after she came back from the dead. Over the little girl's head she stared at her husband. "Bad Wolf?" she whispered quietly. That story wasn't told very often, even to their family. He nodded again.

She closed her eyes for a moment. This was huge; this was astronomical in the sense of the word only travelers like them could know. This was going to change everything. They needed to talk. Rose raised her head again, looking at all the faces she loved who had come to surround her in death and now, for more of her life. "Could you all wait outside a bit? The Doctor and I need to talk." Again, they all silently nodded. There seemed to be a lot of that in the last few minutes. As they filed out, her oldest son Jack stepped forward to collect his daughter from her lap and Rose just shook her head. Jackie had fallen asleep on her grandmother's chest practically the moment she'd put it there. It was nearly midnight after all. Jack nodded but stepped forward anyways to hug his mother.

"I love you Mum. I'm very glad you didn't die." She patted his arm and smiled at him.

"Can't say I'm displeased about it myself." And with another nod, Jack left the room too.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Rose was starting to worry. Silence has _never_ been like the Doctor. He'd literally been talking to her as she died. She'd joked for many years that he was going to talk her to death someday. Nice to know she'd been right. But joking to herself mentally didn't change that his unusual silence was scaring her.

"Doctor, you wanna clue me in on what just happened here or are you gonna sit there like a lump until I die of old age again? Which, by the way, is a very weird thing to say." She added with a small smile, hoping to get some kind of reaction from him.

He sighed, and slowly raised himself from his chair and carefully placing himself next to her on the bed. And hugged her as hard as he could manage with his frail arms.

She hugged him back carefully. Her body felt unnatural to her and she was positive she would need to relearn her strength after decades of lacking any. But she hugged him with no less meaning.

"You're alive." The Doctor kept whispering into her hair and she felt a teardrop slide down her forehead from his cheek. "You didn't leave me." Rose was starting to cry now too. The gravity of the situation wasn't lost on her. She knew exactly what it was like to watch someone you love die right in front of you.

Their eldest child, Donna, had been killed while aliens were invading Earth unexpectedly. She'd seen something pointing a nasty looking gun at her little brother and had pushed Jack out of the way, taking the hit herself. Rose and the Doctor had been too far away to do anything about it except to get to her in time to hold her as she died. She'd been 16 at the time, just visiting her parents at work to meet them with Jack for dinner. Mickey had been over at a mate's for a night of video games and pizza. Rose had cried for weeks. She didn't think Jack had ever forgiven himself.

She held him silently until her husband stopped shaking in her arms. He pulled back and carefully cupped her face in his hands. And smiled one of the brightest smiles she'd seen in years. And promptly said something that nearly killed her again.

"Now he won't have to be alone. You have to go back."

**Um, yeah. Not sure what I think of this chapter. Not as good as the first I think. Made myself cry while writing about Donna. But yeah. Feel free to share your thoughts. Nitpick all you like, I really don't mind. Sorry it took so long; my boyfriend came to town for my birthday weekend.**


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